Stay
by VerelLupin
Summary: Love, betrayal, trust and madness. She loved him, he betrayed her, she does not trust him, he is being driven to madness by her. They've walked away from each other and now years later all one of them has to do is stay.
1. Painfully Yours

Hello again...dipping a cautious toe into this story.

I'm starting slow but hopefully you guys will like it.

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><p>She stretched out her arms and wings and instantly recoiled in agony. "My wings! Where are my wings?" She touched the bloody stumps where her wings should be and screamed. '<strong>Why? He loved me.'<strong>

She cried long into the day and the next. Until the days blurred into months and she was empty and cold. Her land became barren and devoid of warmth as she walked along the lonely paths, away from the moor and to the crumbling castle of the old fey king, the one that overlooked the valley and the castle of the human one.

The creatures of the woods ignored her out of reverence then later out of fear as her footsteps uprooted the land and what bounty remained but she paid them no heed until the raven arrived.

She saved it. Maybe to prove that there was still something of the young fairy she'd been, to prove that he had not taken it all when he butchered her.

The bird, Diaval as she named it, became her companion, the one who spoke and listened intently even though she remained silent. He was her wings and more importantly Diaval was her eyes.

The eyes that spied and confirmed the reason for the savagery she'd suffered and her pain was eclipsed only by the fearsome display of power the land saw that night.

Though she was sure Diaval was the only witness to her sorrow, she knew without a doubt that Stefan felt it. He must have felt the ground shake beneath his boots, for despite how far they had drifted, he had become a part of her the night they had lain together.

She enclosed her home with thorns barring him from ever touching any part of her again and it would remain that way until he came back to the moors and she could end him or she went to him and he ended her.


	2. Regretfully Yours

**Thank you to (guest) for your review: **I will do some flashbacks and hopefully flesh out Stefan more than the movie or book did which lacked it and suffered for it, I think. I do really like Sharlto Copley so I could be biased (hee hee)

I know that there is a very small group of people who ship Stefan/Maleficent and I am so glad I can add to it. I appreciate any kind of feedback, good or bad.

Here we go.

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><p><strong>'Stefan, Stefaaaaan.'<strong>

"No, leave me be."

**'Stefan…Stefan…Stefan.'**

"Quiet damm you."

**'Come…come and talk to us.'**

"Please, I beg of you."

**'Stefan…do not leave us here forgotten. Come…'**

"My lord?" the queen asked as he violently shrugged off the blankets and rose from their bed.

"Go back to sleep." He ordered the startled woman, who watched as he pulled on his dressing gown and exited their room without once meeting her eyes.

The castle was dark, not that it mattered for Stefan had become comfortable in its darkness, he'd learned all its twists and turns while in the service of the former king. He knew it as well as his own skin, as well as he'd known hers, and the room he headed to was as secret to his wife as his still troubled love for the horned fairy.

"Why have you summoned me?" he demanded of the glass case now silent and looming at the other end of the room.

**'We do not summon. We only ask for your attention, we are lonely.'**

"You beg and clamor so that my sleep is disturbed nightly by your voices." He muttered feeling foolish once again.

**'You took us from whence we belonged. It is only fitting that you would become our new companion.'**

"I will not be ordered. I am the King!" he shouted.

The wings lifted and slammed into the case making it tip threateningly towards him. **'You were her guardian, her love. You betrayed her. Now you will be our keeper in her stead, you chose this path!'**

"I could have killed her." He defended placing his hands on the glass that outlined their dark silhouettes and kept them safe. He didn't understand why he kept them safe, he just knew he had to keep protecting them.

**'You should have.'**

The case fell back with a heavy thud and he fell to his knees. "I cannot live like this. I cannot be your guardian. I do not have the ability…it will drive me to madness."

**'Then return what you have stolen. Return us and you will know peace.'**

They fluttered again and he rose tiredly to his feet. **'Let us go, Stefan. Set us free and we will set you free.'** He unsheathed the dagger at his side and cut the ropes holding the glass doors open. **'Give us to her. Take us to her.'**

"I cannot. Do not ask it."

**'Then we will all be prisoners.'  
><strong>

"She hates me." He replied.

**'She hates what you have done. She will always love you as much as you love her. Repair the damage done. Rebuild the trust taken. This is your only chance, Stefan.'**

"Guide me for I no longer remember the forest of my youth."

And guide him they did. Out of the room and down the light and smooth castle stairs and past the window where a pretend pale queen was forgotten to a dark and thorny wood that had once been his home and where his real and vibrant queen, who could never be forgotten, waited to spill his blood.

**'Speak out to her.'**

"Maleficent!"

The woods shuttered but he remained alone. "She will not come," he said defeated.

**'Make yourself be heard. Make her hear you,'** they advised.

"MALEFICENT!"

The trees creaked and twisted aside making way for the lone figure emerging from their dark depths, "what do you seek?"

"I seek you," he replied.

"Are you sure?"

"No," he replied truthfully.

"Why are you here?"

Stefan gathered his courage and stepped into the shadow of the curled thorns surrounding the woman he still loved dearly. "I am returning what I so wrongly took." He'd been within distance of them before but now their mistress could command them and kill him.

She must have thought the same and without thinking stepped into his space, pushing him back away from her twisted woods and towards the safety of his castle. This was not lost on either of them.

"Why would I trust you?" she asked removing herself from his sight and circling him like her damm pet raven often circled his home.

"You need not trust me." He replied and gently laid down the wings in his arms on the ground.

"That is a mistake I will not make again."

Stefan refused to retreat further as Maleficent pinned him with her greens eyes, her form was clad from head to toe in black and her horns casting a long swath of darkness that swallowed and hid them from the moonlight. And yet he thought her more beautiful now when she could cut him down then he ever did back in the days of their youth.

**"Mistress,"** the wings fluttered.

"They've been calling for you." He said quietly.

"You can hear them?"

"Yes, they are persistent," he replied.

"Humans are not supposed to be able to hear them."

"I forged a bond with them…"

"I know exactly when that wretched event took place. I bare the scars of it," she hissed.

He knelt and unwrapped the silken wings and offered them up to her, "allow me to heal the scars. Let me atone for my mistakes."

She took them from his hands, careful that no part of her touched any part of him.

He wanted to say that he would not do her harm again, that his hands had etched paths all over her skin once without hurting her, but her mistrust was rightly earned and he didn't push her further. And from the way she instinctively pulled away he was sure Maleficent wanted no reminder of their time together, though she seemed to forget that she had held power over him as well. No matter how pleasant it began, their interactions could only be flavored with bitterness now.

"You have done what you set out to do," she replied and turned from him, her wings held firmly in her arms.

She did not melt immediately back into the darkness so he once more approached, "you will not seek retribution?"

"Is that why you gave back what was rightfully mine?" Her cloak swirled and the ends of it snapped at Stefan. "You wish to spare your kingdom and your precious queen from my wrath?"

He weathered her storm calmly, he could not retreat. This might be his only chance to tell her what had taken him three years to say. "Neither the queen or my kingdom deserve your wrath, they are both already tied to me. I only wish to know if this is goodbye, I wish to know if we are at an end..."

"We are. Do not venture near my woods."

"If I do?"

"I will not guarantee your safety again."

"Goodbye, Maleficent."

"Goodbye," she said softly and vanished.

**'Worry not, Stefan. We are joined.'**

"That is what I fear."


End file.
